The scenes began speeding up.The first century passed like a breath to those who cultivated on peaks and held nations in their sleeves. It did not pass nearly so quickly for the frontier towns.At the start, the underworld split along a seam no wider than a river path and spat out a thousand shapes. They were misshapen, slow, and hungry. Their eyes were dull. Their claws were blunt. They rose from gullies and old graves and the bottoms of lakes where Water Qi had turned stale. They staggered toward the nearest walls and knocked on them like drunks who had forgotten their own doors.They only had to take a few lives before they attracted the mighty emperor’s attention.Shi Yan Yun stood on the eastern battlements and watched them for a while without drawing his sword.“Pitiable,” he said at last. “Burn the ones nearest the wells. Drive the others west. Let the militias claim heads and markers. It will season them.”They did not need him. He left before noon and returned to the palace

Shi Yan Yun’s breath did not change. His face did not change. But his knuckles whitened where his hand touched the pommel of his blade for a split second. Then the whiteness faded. His hand opened.He did not look at any of them. “What do you want me to do?”“Stop calling these floods a nuisance,” the Vermilion Bird said. “Stop pretending your walls will be enough next century. Walls are never enough. You know that.”“We can help you build laws that will keep souls from falling back as teeth to bite everyone and everything,” the Azure Dragon said. “We can shape a frame for the sky again. But we are not enough by ourselves. We need a core worthy of anchoring edicts.”Shi Yan Yun turned his head then. His eyes were a flat dark. “Mine.”“Yes,” the Vermilion Bird said. “Yours.”The ridge wind moved patterns in the soot on the roofs below. The people had gone back to sleeping. The watch bells sounded the hour. Two were answered by three. Shi Yan Yun remembered the way his brother had once

When the second file finally found the rhythm, the White Tiger’s apparition could move them. When the third file found it, the Black Tortoise’s apparition could lay weight where it mattered. When the fourth file found it, the Vermilion Bird’s apparition could heat the air without cooking lungs. When the fifth file found it, the Azure Dragon’s apparition could pull wind out of the corners of eyes and lungs so that the boys could keep breathing and not pass out.The beating stopped when he saw a line forming under the north gate. He left the drums and jumped. He hit the street with both feet and kept his knees soft. He walked straight into the new line without saying who he was. They made room anyway. Someone tried to put a crown on his head in panic. He knocked the crown out of the man’s hand with his elbow and kept walking.“Hold. Do not stab at shadows. Stab at throats. If your spear breaks, drop it and take your neighbor’s. If your neighbor dies, step into his place. If you die, die

“The Death God broke his promise,” I said. “That is why Shen Yuan lost himself at the last second.”Ki nodded gravely. “Yes. Shen Yuan is a prodigy—the likes of which the world has seen very rarely, if not ever. But he underestimated the Death Spirit, just the tiniest bit. And that hubris is the reason the Death God was able to once again take on a physical form.”“The Death God took him over forcefully. But why? It sounds like it was getting everything it wanted.”“That is something you must discern. I have showed you everything the heavens remember, everything that I can yet recall. Even now, I cannot tell you what you have seen. It is no longer within my reach.” Even her voice seemed faint and ethereal, fading with each moment that passed. “For now, the Demon God is not fully formed yet. But as it is, it is absorbing Death, the miasma, and all the demons across the world into itself. The battle against you has injured it too heavily, damaged its mortal vessel too much. It will need

Flee froze, her cup falling to the ground. Her sudden action made both Zhang and Yan Yun look at her, their eyebrows raised.But before they could ask about what had happened, Ash stiffened up too, and even Ren let out a wave of uncontrolled Chi. Flee looked at Ren and Ash, both of who were looking towards the direction of the Seventh Peak—the same direction she’d sensed it.“Master’s back,” she whispered almost reverently, feeling the subdued connection she had with her master come back to life.—As soon as I saw who was sitting on the dragons, my eyes widened in excitement and I almost laughed. Flee, Liuxiang, Yan Yun, Zhang… all friends I had so dearly missed.I was about to wave, but before I could, Flee leapt from her dragon as soon as they got close and barreled into my chest. Her weight hit like a thrown sack of spirit rice; I let myself fall and bled the force off through my stance so she didn’t bruise herself. I hugged Flee tightly, hands landing on instinct at the middle of